Arbitres

A woman with a deep love of the land, Yolande Simard Perrault sees her life as having been shaped by a planetary upheaval in Charlevoix, Quebec, millions of years ago. As enduring as the Canadian Shield, she’s a woman of strength and spirit, a child of the crater left by the meteor’s impact. This documentary portrays a determined woman who’s the reflection of a land created on an immense scale. She was the creative and life partner of filmmaker Pierre Perrault, who gave up everything to be by her side. The film charts the influence of her unquenchable dreams and her contribution to the building of a people’s collective memory. In a stream of images and words, Simard Perrault recounts the splendours of the landscape and the people who shaped it. Generous and boundless, she embarks on a quest for identity that nurtures and perpetuates the oeuvre of the man who breathed new life into Quebec cinema.

In an age of social media, where the boundaries between private and public are constantly being redrawn, 50 people come together to reveal some of their most intimate thoughts. Director Danic Champoux (Mom and Me) returns to Hot Docs to bring us this inventive story that bends the boundaries of documentary cinema. The ensemble cast appears to bare all for the camera, openly discussing a multitude of subjects, from the funny to the heartbreaking, in this unique portrait that celebrates the diversity of human existence.

In his first short documentary, made for the series Libres courts, filmmaker Danic Champoux points his camera at his own father. This is one of those men who have to uproot themselves and leave their families to be able to work. How many of them have the terrible feeling that they are wasting their life to earn it? Exemplary suppliers, anonymous workers, nomadic builders, they move from factory to dam, from one site to the next and form a society apart. Every day, these men have to rise to the occasion. Each evening, they have to tame the loneliness a little more.

Can cancer be fought in a climate of relative serenity? Filmmaker Danic Champoux believes so, and he attempts to demonstrate it in this feature-length documentary, which shows the activities of an oncology center and the patients who regularly attend chemotherapy treatments.

Every year, hundreds of women develop relationships with prisoners. They fall under the charms of killers, petty criminals, rapists and crooks. Most only share a few letters, but some make it all the way to the altar. It is hard to understand what these women expect from a relationship with a convict with a long prison sentence. This documentary takes a look at their lives and the reasons that make them pursue a relationship with a criminal.

This short documentary is a tribute to the unknown father. Emerging filmmaker Danic Champoux poses the question "How many men still have to uproot themselves and leave their families to get work?" as he sets out to search for his own father. He wonders about these men who are labourers, itinerants, and mostly nameless, but who are all exemplary providers. But at what cost? This film was produced as part of the Libres Courts collection of first-time documentary shorts.

Reflection of the director on criminality and the links that united him since childhood to the Hell’s Angels, more particularly to Mom Boucher and her son Francis.